How to Start on The Plant Spirit Path

This month on The Green Arte YouTube channel, I’ve been sharing three classes that make up a course on The Plant Spirit Path. I’ve had such a great time sharing out this material that is so incredibly sacred and important to me- and the conversations that have arisen from the classes has been so inspiring!

So, what is the plant spirit path, what are the benefits that come from working with the plants in these ancient ways, and how can you start exploring and experiencing the ways of the green realm right now? Let’s explore! I’ll be posting all three parts of the course here as well so you can watch them as we unpack the points shared within them.

What is The Plant Spirit Path?

This is a term which I’ve been using for many years- the best one I’ve come up with the accurately reflects my own spiritual work with the plants. For me, as both a full-time clinical herbalist and spiritual herbalist, my engagement with plants is more than vocational- although that aspect of it is very important to me. Slowly, over the last 25 years, the plants have taken center stage in my spiritual journey and have become my teachers, guides, initiators, and allies along the path.

They have shown me countless way to engage with them in support of harmony through the rituals of magic, medicine, and wisdom. They have revealed mysteries about their place in the world and how that relates to our human place in the same world. They have also continually been there providing me with all the gifts they give all humans- food, fuel, fiber, shelter, medicine, beauty, and inspiration- and so much more.

My spiritual path, then, is a plant-centered one which is fiercely animist, deeply connected to nature and the ways of the natural world, and focused on the intentional co-creation of harmony in the cosmos with the support of the plants.

While folks could easily, and somewhat accurately, call me a green witch, a pagan, a sorcerer, and an occultist- my own definition of what I do and how I do it consistently works best with the plant spirit path.

Why Walk the Path?

There’s nothing wrong with contemplating what’s in it for me- even when it comes to spiritual work. You and I are both part of nature, we belong here, and we’re connected to the whole of things… so the better we do as individuals, the better we lift up everyone else. The plant spirit path is at once deeply world-centered in its goals but also profoundly transformative in how it helps each of us heal and become more ourselves.

I think the greatest book that comes from working with the plants in these ancient and sacred ways is that the will always mirror back to us the best parts of who we are. The nourish the good, and protect the harmonious, always. So, as we sit with our green allies we learn to call forth and focus on the bits of ourselves that are doing the most good in the world and creating the most beauty.

As this process of kinship and healing happens, we cannot help but be reminded just how part of we are. Human exceptionalism is a toxic lie, and the plants will remind us that we are as much a part of nature as river, mountain, bear, bird, and thunderstorm. We belong here, and our presence here is what makes the whole thing whole and holy. A sense of belonging and connection is often the most potent form of medicine any of us can receive- and the plants give it generously.

As our work with the plants in general and the special plants we call our plant spirit familiars deepens, we find that we begin to carry their magic and medicine with us through the human experience acting as emissaries and liaisons between the worlds. This gives us a certain kind of power that we can tap into in service of our communities- being bridges between the ways of wild green wisdom and the needs of our human kin.

Surrounded by plant spirit kin, connected deeply to nature, aligned to the natural rhythms of the world, and tapped in to the power within, the plant spirit path guides us into a journey and an experience of magic, medicine, and wisdom.

How to Practice the Plant Spirit Path

In the class below, I’ll share a few simple yet powerful practices you can do today, right now, to get started. This path is not one built on complexity. It shakes awake wisdom that already exists in our bones- blessings from our own herbwise ancestors. Rather than learning something new we begin to rekindle a fire that is simple living as warm embers. Rather than start doing something new, we engage with the natural rituals of life in ways that deepen and widen them.

Check out part three here to learn practices that you can put to work now…

How to Learn the Plant Spirit Path

The plants are the greatest authority on their own deep green mysteries- but before we can embark on the sorcerous path, we must learn how to learn from otherness. I offer a growing collection of on-demand classes and workshops in addition to The Complete Spiritual Herbalism Program which will teach you how to work with the plants in ancient ways for modern healing.